Recently, electronic appliances such as a digital camera and a mobile telephone are being miniaturized. Along with this, operation components provided therein also are being miniaturized. Such a tendency also is found in operation components (for example, a dial) for selecting any one of a plurality of setting values by varying the position thereof mechanically. On the other hand, due to the increased performance of an electronic appliance, a number of setting values have come to be selected. Thus, irrespective of whether the above-mentioned operation components are being reduced in size, the number of selectable setting values is increasing.
Under such a circumstance, the interval between positions (dial marks, etc.) assigned setting values respectively in the above-mentioned operation buttons is becoming narrow. Therefore, it is difficult for a user to position the operation components and to set them at desired setting values.
In order to solve this problem, Patent Document 1 (JP 2000-122114 A) discloses a camera provided with a switch for switching setting values in a dial. Hereinafter, a conventional camera described in Patent Document 1 will be described.
FIG. 30 is a schematic view showing a shutter dial 502 and an operation lever 504 of the conventional camera. An index 503 is fixed to a camera body. The shutter dial 502 includes dial marks 502a to 502s. The shutter dial 502 rotates. Therefore, an operator can orient any one of the dial marks 502a to 502s to the index 503.
When the dial mark 502a is oriented to the index 503, the shutter speed of the camera is set automatically. When the dial mark 502s is oriented to the index 503, the shutter of the camera remains open until a shutter button is pressed again after being pressed (valve setting).
When any one of the dial marks 502b to 502r is oriented to the index 503, the shutter speed is varied depending upon the state of an operation lever 504. When the operation lever 504 is at a position A in FIG. 30, the shutter speed is represented by an inverse of a number printed in the vicinity of a dial mark on the surface of the shutter dial. For example, as shown in FIG. 30, when the dial mark 502k is oriented to the index 503, a printed number is “15”, so that the shutter speed becomes 1/15 seconds.
On the other hand, when the operation lever 504 is at a position B in FIG. 30, the shutter speed is represented by a number printed in the vicinity of a dial mark on the surface of the shutter dial 502. For example, as shown in FIG. 30, when the dial mark 502k is oriented to the index 503, a printed number is “15”, so that the shutter speed becomes 15 seconds.
As described above, according to the conventional camera disclosed in Patent Publication 1, due to the presence of the operation lever 504, the shutter dial 502 can be used both for an ordinary mode and a long second mode, and a number of shutter speeds, which can be set with the shutter dial 502, can be provided.
However, according to the above-mentioned conventional camera, in order to provide a number of setting values of the shutter speed, it is necessary to newly provide the operation lever 504. Therefore, there is a problem that the production cost of a camera increases due to the increase in the number of members. Furthermore, recently, there is a tendency for a camera to be miniaturized; therefore, there is a problem that no space is available for newly providing the operation lever 504.
Furthermore, the operator does not know a shutter speed unless he/she always grasps whether the operation lever 504 is at the position A or B, so that it is difficult to grasp a shutter speed through intuition. Because of this, the operator makes an operation error while taking a picture. For example, in the case where the operator mistakenly understands that the operation lever 504 is at the position A in spite of the fact that it is at the position B, when the operator desires to set the shutter speed to be lower than that at the current setting (rotate the shutter dial 502 in a CC direction in the figure), the operator may rotate it in a CW direction in the figure to set the shutter speed to be higher than that of the current setting. Consequently, the operator takes a picture at an incorrect exposure amount and misses a shutter chance.
Furthermore, due to the presence of the operation lever 504, the number of settable shutter speeds increases; however, some of the settable shutter speeds (2000 seconds, 4000 seconds, etc.) actually have a very low possibility for use. Thus, the number of effective shutter speeds is not so large. That is, there is a problem that no degree of freedom is available in settable values of the shutter speed.